The New Millennium: Paperless Navigation for the U.S. Navy

Paul M. Novak and Patrick K. Baccei

Abstract:	The evolution of navigation and the advances in companion technology in the last millennium have set the stage for a new U.S. Navy navigation paradigm: paperless navigation. To the naval mariner and warfighter, paperless navigation will mean improved safety of navigation, greatly enhanced ship control, and a common, distributed navigation picture. Hundreds of years ago, mariners kept track of the latitudes they sailed on, crudely and inefficiently adjusting their courses and approaches as they made their way to known latitude destinations. Eventually, time and longitude were added and the mariner could then reasonably deduce his true position within some number of miles. Mariners could then chart, with similar accuracy, the landmasses and features they encountered. This basic navigation process has been slowly honed and refined over time. During the final decades of the last century, quantum leap navigation advances were made. Namely, the availability of: continuous position fixing; paper charts in digital electronic media; the maturity and reliability of fast, compact, user-friendly computers; and finally, the capability and connectivity of ship-to-shore communications and onboard networks. All the advances of the last thousand years aside, U.S. Navy navigators are still required to use traditional paper-based methods to execute the routine tasks of navigation such as: plan voyages, monitor progress along a track, plot observed navigation aids, analyze and explore alternate trial tracklines. These methods have proven laborious, time consuming, error prone and of constrained value to the overall process and product of navigation. It can be no surprise that the Navy is poised for the next step, a dramatic change navigation of a ship with neither the need of a paper chart nor many of the traditional procedures required by the use of a paper medium. Paperless navigation can have many meanings, but for the purposes of this paper it is: computer based and displayed navigation, using charts rendered from electronic media. Further, it implies a system that: accepts and plots position information; displays it and other pertinent navigation items for operator analysis and decision; conducts and displays limited analysis actions of its own; provides status, indications and alarms; and accepts operator inputs and actions that contribute to or change the navigation picture. Paperless navigation will go a long way towards solving the problems and issues that navigators have struggled with through the ages. In concert, the stage is also set for a robust marriage to ship control systems that have similarly evolved and for a common distributed navigation picture. SPAWAR PMW 187 fields a Program of Record system, the Navigation Sensor System Interface (NAVSSI) that has leveraged navigation and technology advances to address the problems and issues mentioned above. This system will be described in more detail in the next section. U.S. Navy navigation has come a long way in both its capabilities and the demands placed on those capabilities. The next step involves a quantum jump a--- paradigm shift. This paper will set the stage for the shift, beginning with a primer of recent past and present developments. It will then take the reader through the transition and offer a glimpse of what’s beyond. Finally, it will highlight the challenges to be met and overcome in the way ahead.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 2000 National Technical Meeting of The Institute of Navigation January 26 - 28, 2000 Pacific Hotel Disneyland Anaheim, CA
Pages:	333 - 338
Cite this article:	Novak, Paul M., Baccei, Patrick K., "The New Millennium: Paperless Navigation for the U.S. Navy," Proceedings of the 2000 National Technical Meeting of The Institute of Navigation, Anaheim, CA, January 2000, pp. 333-338.
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